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U.S. Premiere of Les Idoles Tribute to Pierre Clémenti Film Comment Selects Tuesday, November 25, 2008 at 7:30pm Film Comment Selects is sponsored by Stella Artois and the National Endowment for the Arts. Stay for the yé-yé afterparty! French psychedelic ’60s pop spun by DJs J Tripp, Melody Nelson, and the Film Society's own Gabriele Caroti. Music provided by Viva Radio. excerpt from Les Idoles Marc’o, France, 1968; 105m No film captures the glittering, zombified world of France’s ’60s yé-yé pop royalty with as much style as Marc’o’s 1968 musical, an all-singing, all-dancing missing link between the melancholy pop fantasy of Godard’s Masculin féminin and Guy Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle. The initial success of three pop singers—reformed Brechtian delinquent Charly the Knife (Clémenti), fausse naïve Gigi la Folle (Bulle Ogier), and part-time psychic Simon le Magicien (Jean-Pierre Kalfon)—gives way to betrayal, conflict, and disillusionment in a flamboyant backstage drama of complicity and revolt. The film’s critique of the culture industry becomes its own form of fetishism—the accusations it levels are gradually drowned out by the sensual appeals to props, costumes (wait till you see the costumes), or, more simply, bodies in motion. Marc’o is clearly in love with his actors, and he elicits unforgettable performances: Ogier’s crass, hunchbacked moves dovetail perfectly with Clémenti’s convulsive lyricism and Kalfon’s star turn, which calls to mind Frankenstein’s monster cradling an armful of puppies. The trio’s every sigh and high kick is echoed in the freaked-out, punked-up musical backing of house band Les Rollsticks. Ultimately, this sly coupling of censure and caress lies at the heart of the film’s cruel genius: first it suggests that pop music is the sound that kills—then it makes us want to hear more. (Incidentally, Jean Eustache edited the film, André Téchiné worked as assistant director and Paul Virilio helped scout locations!)—Sam Di Iorio, Film Comment, Sept/Oct ’08 Pierre Clémenti, perhaps best known as the brooding young gangster who falls for Catherine Deneuve in Buñuel’s Belle de jour, was a true icon of the French underground and poster child for the radical cinematic ferment that came in the wake of May ’68. He emerged as a key member of Marc’o’s legendary American Center troupe and became an unlikely movie star after appearing with Deneuve in the period romp Benjamin. Marching to a different drummer, Clémenti spurned fame and the big-time to embark on a journey of mystical self-discovery, while collaborating with a new generation of directors on the Left — including Bernardo Bertolucci, Glauber Rocha, Phillippe Garrel, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Dusan Makavejev and Miklos Jancsó.